Electoral Behavior in the Russian Far East, 1995-2000: Contextual and Compositional Effects

A group of political scientists specializing in Russia's post-Soviet electoral behavior explores the question of whether genuinely regional effects of voting behavior can be discerned (and at what scale) by controlling for variations in compositional characteristics measured by aggregate social and economic data. The paper seeks to identify situations in which contextual effects may be operating, using a scale of analysis that is intermediate between regional (oblast)-level case studies and nationwide surveys—that of the Russian Far East macroregion. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 4 tables, 40 references, 1 appendix.     

Breeding Influenza: The Political Virology of Offshore Farming

Abstract:  The geographic extent, xenospecificity, and clinical course of influenza A (H5N1), the bird flu strain, suggest the virus is an excellent candidate for a pandemic infection. Much attention has been paid to the virus's virology, pathogenesis and spread. In contrast, little effort has been aimed at identifying influenza's social origins. In this article, I review H5N1's phylogeographic properties, including mechanisms for its evolving virulence. The novel contribution here is the attempt to integrate these with the political economies of agribusiness and global finance. Particular effort is made to explain why H5N1 emerged in southern China in 1997. It appears the region's reservoir of near-human-specific recombinants was subjected to a phase change in opportunity structure brought about by China's newly liberalized economy. Influenza, 200 nm long, seems able to integrate selection pressures imposed by human production across continental distances, an integration any analysis of the virus should assimilate in turn.     

1918年流感的中国疫情初探--以直隶获鹿县为中心

文章以民国报纸和档案为主要资料,分析了直隶获鹿县的1918年流感疫情,给出了具体的感染率、死亡率以及在不同年龄、性别和区域之间的差异。指出此次流感虽然未在中国形成大面积流行,但由于对发病原因认识不足,医疗手段落后,北洋政府未能采取统一的防疫措施,导致个别地区流感死亡率偏高。作者认为国家的积极作用是控制疾病大流行的关键。     

The spatial anatomy of an epidemic: influenza in London and the county boroughs of England and Wales, 1918–1919

From uncertain origins in the spring of 1918, an apparently new variant of influenza A virus spread around the world as three distinct diffusion waves, infecting half a billion and probably killing around 40 million people. This paper examines the spatial structure of influenza transmission during the ten–month course of the epidemic in England and Wales, June 1918–April 1919, using the weekly counts of influenza deaths in London and the county boroughs as collated by the General Register Office, London. In addition, a particular case study of the borough of Cambridge is presented. From mid–1916, Cambridge contained, as well as its undergraduate population, a large naval contingent billeted in both the colleges and the town. It therefore affords the opportunity of studying the effect of the epidemic in contiguous groups with widely differing demographic characteristics. Through the application of a range of statistical methods (average lags, correlations and regressions), it is shown that the three waves that comprised the pandemic had fundamentally different spatial and temporal characteristics. The first, moving through a population that was a virgin soil to the new virus strain, was explosive in its north to south progress across the country. The second wave was somewhat slower in its rate of diffusion and displayed a south to north drift. Finally, the third wave reverted more closely to the form of the first. The spread of all three waves, however, was underpinned by a clearly defined process of spatial contagion. The Cambridge study showed the special characteristics of this pandemic in terms of the ages of those attacked: high rates were experienced across the age spectrum, a feature also seen internationally.     

Military and Maritime Evidence of Pandemic Influenza in Canada during the Summer of 1918

Analysis of archival correspondence, the daily logs of troopships transporting soldiers to Europe and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database for soldier deaths from pneumonia and influenza across Canada indicate that influenza was more common during the summer of 1918 than previously thought. Evidence of pandemic influenza so close to the outbreak of the fall wave calls into question the storyline of a mutated virus causing the emergence of the fall wave of the 1918 influenza pandemic. This highlights the significance of other host, social and environmental circumstances, many related to the First world war, that may have contributed to the severity and timing of pandemic waves in Canada.